An Israeli king of Kings

November 13, 2009 - 12:51 PM by David · 1 Comment
Filed under: General 

Thunder Kings BasketballWhen Omri Casspi became the first Israeli basketball player to make the NBA this year with the Sacremento Kings, it was a pretty big deal. And for most, it was the end all – even if he never gets to play and is cut after a year, it was still an accomplishment.

Who would have thought that, just a few short weeks into the season, the 21-year-old Casspi would spark the Kings to become a respectable NBA team, coming off the bench to score three-pointers, grab rebounds and generally play with more fervor than just about anyone else on the court? Probably only a few people, including Casspi and his coach, NBA great Paul Westphal.

“There’s nothing like the passion of a rookie. And from what I’ve seen, there are few rookies as passionate as Sacramento’s Omri Casspi,” wrote NBA.com writer Drew Packham this week in ranking Casspi as the seventh top rookie so far this season. Westphal even said,
“He’s going to make it in this league. He’s going to have a long career.”

The 6′ 8″ Yavne native has earned a strong following among Kings fans and a huge following among Israeli basketball fans in averaging almost 10 points per game. He’s also helped fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv, his old club where he averaged 12.8 points and 4.6 rebounds forget about the scandal unfolding following the suicide of team manager Moni Fanan.

More importantly, Casspi has proven to be a huge image booster for Israel. Fans wave Israeli flags at his games, and NBA fans who don’t know Israel from India are suddenly discovering a connection close to their hearts.

And he’s become a darling among sportswriters, with the natural angles of an Israeli making it in the NBA and his already well-known prediliction for hummus. The Salt Lake City Tribune recently ran a profile of Casspi, calling him a combination of Jackie Robinson and Kobe Bryant, a pioneer, and Israel’s greatest player.

“[Maccabi Tel Aviv] is the biggest team in Israel,” Casspi said. “As soon as I reached my goals there — I was a starter and one of the main players — I decided to give the NBA a shot. … I was fortunate to be drafted and I’m fortunate to be here.”

“Everybody in Israeli is following me,” he said after the Kings’ shoot-around Saturday morning. “They are showing the games over there. So it’s great.”

Isn’t carrying the hoop dreams of an entire country a bit of a burden?

“Nah, it’s OK,” Casspi said. “Everybody is really supporting me. I’m enjoying it. I’m just happy that everybody is happy for me.”

Here’s one story that everyone, except for Casspi’s NBA opponenets, can all be happy about.

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Missing in Israel – Jack in the Box

October 24, 2009 - 10:24 PM by David · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Holidays, Life, Sports 

basketbResidents of Haifa have a new unlikely neighbor who is hardly anonymous – Jeremy Tyler, is an 18-year-old basketball-playing phenomenon from San Diego who signed with Maccabi Haifa this past summer and has been acclimating himself to his new enivrons.

The 6′-11″ 260-pound Tyler decided to skip his senior year in high school in order to gain experience in professional basketball playing in the European League with Mac. Haifa as a prelude to reaching the NBA in the 2011 draft.

Last year, he averaged 28.7 points during his junior year at San Diego High to lead the club to the CIF-San Diego Section Division I quarterfinals.

After a few weeks here, Tyler is convinced he made the right move, telling The Jerusalem Post’s Aryeh Dean Cohen that playing basketball in Israel will be “a good story to tell my kids about, and their kids’ kids.”

But he also admitted that he’s still getting used to some of the basic elements of life in Israel. As far as the food goes, he likes “absolutely nothing” that’s prepared locally, and has a constant craving for his his favorite meals at Jack in the Box.

He also misses his family and his Jewish girlfriend Erin, with whom he hopes to visit Jewish sites here when she arrives for a visit this year. So far, Tyler’s ‘I’m not in Kansas anymore’ moment came on Yom Kippur, which he called “that holiday where we had to stay in the house – Yom Kippur… I’ve never seen a city, a whole country like this shut down. It was like ‘Wow’ to me.”

That’s alright Jeremy, I’ve been here 25 years and am still in awe when that happens.
Welcome to Israel, and good luck with Maccabi Haifa.

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Send the hummous to Sacremento

July 19, 2009 - 9:52 AM by David · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Food, General, Pop Culture, Sports, Travel 

Omri Casspi playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv last year. (AP)

Omri Casspi playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv last year. (AP)

While thousands of Jewish athletes are currently in Israel competing in the Maccabia games, there’s one Jewish athlete who’s in Las Vegas making Israelis proud – our first NBA player Omri Casspi of the Sacremento Kings.

The New York Times ran a weekend piece on Casspi as he plays in the NBA summer league and adjusts to life without a local cell phone and without the creamy hummous which Americans still don’t seem to know how to make.

He just received a $4,500 bill for about two weeks of calls, which is expensive even by N.B.A. standards. He needs new chargers for all his gadgets. But he is struggling most to find comfort food.
“Hummus,” Casspi said, with a hard h and a long u, stressing the first syllable in a way that conveyed utter seriousness. “You don’t have that here, though.”
A reporter insisted that the chickpea spread is widely available in grocery stores in the United States, but Casspi — who was drafted last month by the Sacramento Kings — smiled dismissively.
“Man, I tried it; that’s all I can say,” he said last week during a break in the Kings’ summer league schedule. “I will bring some from Israel, maybe. I’ll let you taste it and you tell me.”

No Israeli has ever played in the NBA, and until last month, none had ever been drafted in the first round. When the Kings took Casspi with the 23rd pick, he became the first Israeli to secure a guaranteed contract, which will almost assuredly make him the first to play in an NBA game.

According to the Times’ story, Casspi is ready to take on the mantel of the great Israeli hope – both for Israelis, and American Jews proud to see an Israeli in the NBA and already sporting NBA jerseys with Casspi’s name written in Hebrew.

“I think all the eyes and ears in Israel, in basketball in Israel, are focused on me now,” he said, sitting behind a desk in his hotel room in Las Vegas. “There is big expectations, and all the Jewish community in the States is really excited about it. So I think there’s a big responsibility with it.”

Once the NBA season starts, there will likely be alot of 4 am wakeup calls in Israel, in order to get up and watch the Kings games, who have quickly turned into the country’s most popular basketball team next to Maccabi Tel Aviv.

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Our first NBA pick

July 1, 2009 - 8:18 PM by Jessica · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Sports, coexistence 

casspi_omri_didele1You may have read about it already, but I need to express my excitement about Omri Casspi becoming the first Israeli player to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft. Yes, it’s not the final, final stage in this nail-biting process, but hey, it’s the NBA and he’s Israeli and it’s looking pretty good.

In case you didn’t know, Casspi is 6′9″, 20, and a forward for Maccabi Tel Aviv. He was selected 23rd overall by the Sacramento Kings, and as Ha’aretz noted, “is the focus of a national obsession with the idea of an Israeli making it into the NBA, in which some 20 percent of the players are foreigners.”

The country’s obsession should have been requited ten years ago when Oded Katash had a two-year contract with the New York Knicks — the New York Knicks! — but lost his marbles during the 1999 player lockout. I know, insane.

There have been others since; Doron Shefer, Lior Eliyahu and Yotam Halperin, all drafted, all in the second round. But they didn’t make it. Casspi, on the other hand, is in. Will he get a contract? Will he get off the bench? Hard to say. But hey. Very hopeful.

According to the New York Jewish Week, Casspi’s selection also smacks of a coexistence bid, natch, as the King’s co-owners, Joe and Gavin Maloof, are popular Sacramento businessmen and philanthropists who come from a Lebanese Arab family. That appears to be a first.

So what’ve we got? An Israeli basketball player signed to the NBA, and a coexistence play in progress. All good signs.

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